Comparative effectiveness and patient-centered outcomes research: enhancing uptake and use by patients, clinicians and payers.

Evidence from comparative effectiveness research (CER) and patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) studies are increasingly available in the literature. However, there remain opportunities to better integrate that evidence into decision-making. An invitation-only conference held in January 2017, titled "Comparative Effectiveness and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research: Enhancing Uptake and Use by Patients, Clinicians and Payers", sought to identify and discuss both gaps in the uptake and use of CER/PCOR, and approaches to enhance the uptake and use of CER/PCOR evidence by patients, clinicians and payers. In this article, we summarize the conference proceedings, and highlight the themes and recommendations that resulted from the sessions. This paper also introduces other articles in this issue of CER from that conference.